


Durin's Comet

by Quillicous



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender, The Hobbit - All Media Types, The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Avatar-Bilbo, Fire Prince Thorin, Gen, earthbender hobbits, earthbending dwarves, everything changed when Smaug took over the Fire Nation, firebending Durins, if Gandalf's a bender he's not saying, spoilers for both universes, there isn't much Middle Earth in here
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-04-03
Updated: 2013-04-03
Packaged: 2017-12-07 09:56:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,018
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/747190
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Quillicous/pseuds/Quillicous
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>One hundred years ago, the dragon Smaug descended upon the capital of the Fire Nation, driving out the Durin royal family and all who supported them. He relegated them to colonies on the Earth Kingdom coasts, where they toiled in exile trying to rebuild their lives. Then their Avatar was killed by the orc king Azog, and the dwarves lost hope of retaking their kingdom.</p>
<p>Now the exiled Fire Prince Thorin Oakenshield is ready to reclaim his nation. Gandalf chooses the fourteenth member of the company: the current and almost totally unknown Avatar Bilbo Baggins. Bilbo has been hiding from his duty for fifty years, justifying it with the fact that there is no war in the land and no need for an Avatar, and as a result he has only the barest smidge of training in any of the four elements.  The only thing he's really good at is sneaking around--but they'll need more than that to retake the Fire Nation.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Durin's Comet

The stove wouldn’t light again and this was the second time in as many days. Bilbo glared at it, as if that would somehow make it burst into fire and begin cooking his dinner. And he had lost his spark-rocks a few days ago.

At last he sighed and closed his eyes. He had always been rather awful at firebending; he wasn’t aggressive enough for it and his teacher, a dwarf who had come through the Shire one day, had not been able to tell him where else to draw power for firebending besides anger.

Still, he was good enough to light a stove. Hopefully. He’d managed it yesterday, right?

Deep breaths...draw heat from one's self...and...nothing.

Bilbo tried again. And again. After a good twenty minutes attempting to get a steady flame going at his fingertips, Bilbo gave up in disgust and resigned himself to a cold lunch. Afterwards he wandered out onto his front step, pipe in hand--

\--only to remember he couldn’t light that either.

Frustrated and a bit angry (unfortunately not angry enough for fire) Bilbo abandoned his pipe to flip through his mail. A letter from a friend in Ba Sing Se--he frowned at that one for a long time, feeling there was something off about the handwriting, but he hadn’t seen the friend or the friend’s writing in a long time, so eventually he set that aside and continued through the stack of mail.

Then he saw a tall stranger coming up the path. Curiously enough, the stranger wore only long gray robes, with no definitive clues to his nationality. He was too tall to be from around here--the Shire was full of hobbits, but no Big People. 

“Good morning!” Bilbo said, to be polite. He was having an awful morning, but that was no reason for him to make the stranger’s morning similarly miserable.

The stranger stopped and leaned on a long staff that was as nondescript as his gray robes. “What do you mean?” he asked. “Do you wish me a good morning, or mean that it is a good morning whether I want it or not; or that you feel good this morning; or that it is a morning to be good on?"

Bilbo paused and thought that through, a little annoyed with the stranger already. “Three out of four,” he said. “And it’s a very fine morning for tobacco out of doors as well.” It would be finer if he had a pipe to smoke, but it was a nice morning. The sun was shining and it wasn't too hot or too cold.

“Your pipe is unlit,” the stranger observed.

“Yes, well,” Bilbo said, more annoyed now, “I’ve lost my spark rocks.”

“Bilbo Baggins relying on spark rocks?” The stranger peered at Bilbo from under large gray bushy eyebrows. “Can you not firebend?”

“I don’t--” Bilbo started, then he gaped at the stranger again. Nobody in Hobbiton really knew what sort of bender Bilbo was, and he was sure most of the fauntlings didn’t even know he bent at all. He couldn’t think of anyone outside of the Shire who might possibly know what he was. “This is the Shire,” he said firmly. “We are folk of the Earth. We don’t bend fire. Good morning!” 

The stranger smiled as if at some private joke, ignoring Bilbo's dismissive 'good morning', and said, “You are quite right, Bilbo Baggins. Ordinary hobbits do not bend fire.”

The words _But you’re not an ordinary hobbit_ were left unsaid. Bilbo felt very exposed and uncomfortable under the stranger’s too-knowing scrutiny. “I don’t believe I know your name.”

“You do know my name, you just don’t remember that I belong to it! Gandalf is my name, and Gandalf means me! And to think that I should live to be good-morning’d by Belladonna Took’s son as if I were selling buttons at the door.”

“Gandalf! Not the Gandalf who used to make such marvelous fireworks?I remember those! Old Took used to have them on Midsummer's Eve. Splendid! They used to go up like great lilies and snapdragons and laburnums of fire and hang in the twilight all evening!”

“I am glad to see you remember my fireworks kindly, at any rate,” Gandalf said dryly. 

“But it isn’t the seasons for fireworks,” Bilbo said. “What sort of business have you got in the Shire?” That was very blunt, but he was very disconcerted by the gray not-quite stranger and wanted to stop talking about himself.

“I am looking for someone to share in an adventure I am arranging, and it is very difficult to find anyone,” Gandalf said.

“Adventures!” Bilbo fumbled with the mail in his lap, shuffling it into one stack. “I beg your pardon. There’s no one around here who would want to participate in such a thing. You might try Omashu or one of the Fire Nation colonies!”

“No, I don’t think so; you remember my fireworks and that is not without hope. Indeed for your old grand-father Took's sake, and for the sake of poor Belladonna, I will give you what you asked for."

“I beg your pardon! I haven’t asked for anything.”

“Yes you have, twice now! My pardon. I give it to you. In fact, I will go so far as to send you on this adventure. Very amusing for me, very good for you and profitable too, very likely, if you ever get over it."

Very flustered, Bilbo stammered out, "Sorry! I don't want any adventures, thank you. Not today. Good morning! But please come to tea - any time you like! Why not tomorrow? Come tomorrow! Good-bye!"

With that he fled the scene, only just remembering to take his pipe and mail as he dashed back through the door and shut it as quickly as he could without being rude behind him.

Horrified with himself for having asked the stranger to tea--and why had he done that, really?--Bilbo made his way towards the pantry. A piece of cake and maybe a drink to settle his nerves, that was the thing to do.

**Author's Note:**

> The Shire is a remote little group of towns tucked in an obscure corner of the Earth Kingdom. Nobody knows what the heck Gandalf is--bender, nonbender, wizard, nobody knows.
> 
> Updates will likely not be regular.


End file.
